


Louder

by ivyleaguenerd



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with an Open Ending, Crying under the CN tower, Dylan is tired of being a secret, Heartbreak, M/M, Open Ending, Panic Attacks - Implied, breaking up, imagine breaking ur shorty's heart under the cn tower like wtf is wrong with u bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27054436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyleaguenerd/pseuds/ivyleaguenerd
Summary: Dylan's heart has been broken for way longer than Connor's. After all, he only dropped Connor's this evening.
Relationships: Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Louder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the account @softerhockey on twitter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the+account+%40softerhockey+on+twitter).



No, Dylan really shouldn’t ruin this peaceful evening with Connor. The one where they’d shared some takeout tex-mex food in the car, and listened to some of their favorite songs, drove around their favorite spots and walked alongside one another by the CN tower. Edmonton was nice, but not as secluded for the date night they’d always dreamt of. A night full of laughs, smiles, giggles, and kisses, hand-holding, and all those perfect things that make you feel giddy. The kind of giddy that spreads from your head to your toes, from your heart to your hands and your stomach all the way down to your knees. 

So no, by no reasonable means should Dylan have spoken a single word as they aimlessly wandered around the base of the CN tower.

For some reason though, he inhaled a shaky breath and he let the words that had been trapped in his mind since he was seventeen slide right out and into the chilled Toronto air. 

“I think about sending you a text sometimes, and just saying whatever is sitting on the top of my head and then I realize,” Dylan pauses, and he sighs before he fills his lungs with air to finish his sentence. “That it’s rude to be a few hundred miles away and unintentionally breaking your heart through texts.” 

“Dylan, you would never break my heart through texts. The second you said anything remotely harmful, I’d rush over to you so fast just to beat your ass in person.” Connor chuckled dryly, not really seeming to understand the significance of the abrupt conversation just yet.

“Oh, but I would. Like, the one thought that I feel most often is about the fact that I am so glad that you’re a part of my life, and how much I love having you there,” Dylan pauses again, the tension of his feelings crawling up his chest from the same place the food in his stomach is disintegrating around his stomach acid. “But also how bad I’d feel for you if you had to have me in your life.” 

“Dyls, what does that even mean? You are in my life, every single day.” Connor turned his head to pay a little more attention to Dylan’s face, not enjoying the sudden pale it’d faded into. 

“No, I’m not, Connor. No hickeys, no kissing, no holding hands, no leaning on your shoulder, no hugging, no chirping, no visits to one another’s locker room, no asking me to stay the night, not a lot of texting because of the paper trail, no random visits, no catching up with your parents, no dinner dates, no fancy restaurants, I-I could keep going.” Dylan huffed, it was clear how distraught the mention of these issues had made him. 

“Dyls, you know why I say all of that.” Connor gave a sigh of his own, and he tried to get Dylan’s attention with his burning glare but was having an issue getting Dylan to snap out of his trance. 

“Say it, Connor. Say it loud enough for everyone to hear, everyone in the stadium to hear. Everyone in all of Toronto, Edmonton, Chicago, fucking-fucking say it, Connor.” Dylan stumbled over himself a bit, as he was finding the anger he’d shoved down begin to rise and overflow, spilling ridiculously right out of his mouth, causing the spit to fleck off of his lips every single time he licked them. 

“Say-say what? An-and why does it have to be for everyone to hear? If we’re talking about us, to one another, wouldn’t it just be reasonable that we keep our business to one another? So what do you need me to say for just you and I to hear?” Connor was quite taken aback by the nature of the bite in Dylan’s words, wondering what he had done wrong. Was it something he’s said? Something he’s done as of this evening? Did he say something insensitive in the past, the recent past? What did he do to get Dylan so upset so fast? 

“It’s not personal to just us, because everyone should already know. They all look at me with that stare, they all watch me leave the ice under that stare. Tell them what they already assume, say it loud and proud, Connor.” Dylan prompted, once again. The tops of his ears were getting red, and heated with the same rage he spat with his words. His cheeks seemed to be filling with the same red, the same heat from his ears and tongue. 

“What the hell do you want me to say so damn badly, Dylan? What the hell is the problem? What did I not say, what did I even do to get you this mad?” In all honesty, Connor was more confused now than he had been in his entire life. Even back to when he was in eleventh grade, studying up on his pre-calculus work. 

“That I’m still not good enough.” Dylan bluntly dropped the ball, he threw it on the ground and for whatever reason, it shattered like fine china. It shattered like bone fragments after a rough blow, it shattered like the way his own heart did the night that they originally had to leave one another. 

“Dylan, where the hell did you get this from? Obviously, you’re good enough. You’ve been good enough since fucking, back when we were on the ice with stupid Otters sweaters on our backs!” Connor easily began raising his voice, in protest, in clear defense of himself. Trying to defend and protect the relationship, to savor the way things really seemed to him, at least. 

“Just say it, Connor. Don’t act surprised that I know, you knew that I would figure it out eventually. And don’t for a mere fucking second pretend like I didn’t lose all meaning the second we left that rink, after that loss.” Dylan’s words were warnings, his hurt was imminent in his tone and the rasp that came with injury was beginning to protrude at the end of his sentence. 

“Dylan, you can’t make me say something that is so far from true and actively not something I think or feel, knock it off, please,” Connor just begged, he just tried to pray and hope with all of the God that was left inside of him that this would end. That they could go back to gazing at the tower, the night sky, the people also aimlessly walking around them, and just relax. That they didn’t have to do this, have this sort of discussion, this harsh talk with damaging words that could never be forgotten or taken back. 

“Connor, you’re so fucking dumb sometimes, even with a brain that fucking huge, you’re an absolute moron.” Dylan sighed, a dry and weak chuckle following the sigh this time. He shook his head, letting it drop between his shoulders as he walked and keeping his eyes on the floor for a moment longer to linger through the insanity that Connor McDavid had become to him. Not even as a person, as a concept, as a shell or coffin of what he used to be, of what they used to be. 

“Oh, okay Dylan, so we’re just insulting people who don’t give in to our depressing conversations that don’t make any sense? That’s to be expected, but it’s not like it could hurt any more than when we are on the ice, right? Cause chirping me off the ice totally isn’t just basically calling me names without an excuse, right? As if I need to be hearing you talk like this as if I want to see you shit-talk yourself, now you turn the knife?” Connor’s brows furrowed deeply, the frowns following up through his forehead as he felt himself get angry. He squeezed his hands tight around the fabric of his hoodie, the cuffs of the bright orange fabric under the flannel he sported over it, the action hidden by the comfort of his pockets, nevertheless. 

“You’ve basically been telling me that, that I’m not good enough for you since the moment we left the ice. You don’t even realize it, do you?” Dylan followed up, right after he let Connor vent out his little portion of anger, letting him let steam out of his boiling little pot of water between his ears. 

“How? I’ve never spoken those words to you once in my entire life, I swear on my mother for that one.” Connor’s countenance went right back to confused, the shock of Dylan’s new claim filling his face and leaving his mouth slightly agape. 

“You left me after the draft, for Edmonton. Now that was all fine and fun and cool and cute, but you kept me a secret. You’ve been keeping me a secret, this entire time. No one even knows whether or not we talk anymore! Not the fans, other friends of ours, teammates, everyone thinks that we just drifted real fast and gave up the friendship to benefit ourselves and our game on the ice.” Dylan slowly, but surely scraped the first layer of ice off the explanation. 

“I didn’t leave you, Dylan, I’m walking right next to you right now, I don’t know how much closer I can even get to you.” Connor was extremely careful with his words. To say that he hadn’t been hiding his relationship with would have been lying right through his teeth, and karma would actually have snapped his back into two separate pieces if he’d actually said that to Dylan, just now. 

“But you did just confirm how much of secret you’ve kept me. What, do you still have a journal too? All locked up with all your little fluttery feelings about me hiding under your mattress?” Dylan slid a hand out of his pocket to fix his backward hat, dragging it forward to shield the front half of his head, more specifically his face, then sliding the grey hoodie up and over the hat. 

“No, I left that in the Newmarket family home, under that mattress, thank you very much.” Connor shook his head, finding it ridiculous that Dylan thought it was relevant to this current day and life conversation. 

“Do you still have all the pictures we take together in a hidden file on your phone?” From this point on, he only asked the questions he actually desired the answers to. 

“Yes.” Connor couldn’t lie, not to Dylan. Not directly, not behind his back, not in his head, not through text, or over the phone. There was no way he could do it. 

“Do you still hide my key in that fake rock in your plant outside of your door?” Dylan’s words came out with a tremble as if this all lead up to the worst conclusion possible, the big bomb due to drop down in the end. 

“Yes,” Connor gave a slight sigh, he felt so forced and disgusted to be having to admit these things. “Why are we doing this, Dylan, please,” Not to mention the sudden tears forming around the bottom lid in both of his eyes. 

“When’s the last time Kelly thinks we spoke?” Dylan’s voice was rough again as if he was right back where the conversation started, getting stabbed in the midst of his organs. 

“June 2017.” Connor shook his head, knowing how wrong this was. Knowing how shameful his actions were, how painstaking, how sneaky, how manipulative, how rude, how inconsiderate, all of his tactics were. It didn’t ever bring him the comfort, keeping the secret never even gifted him a moment of comfort in his relationship or his sexuality status. 

“Connor, I’m so sorry for how much of a shame it’d be to you if I entered your life, like the way you were in mine.” Dylan absolutely was beyond the point of a silent sob, his words racked out with the way his breathing fell uneven. Both himself and Connor could absolutely hear the sobbing added to his words, and he wasn’t even the slightest to be embarrassed by it. What kind of man cries in public, beside the CN tower? A Dylan Strome kind of man. 

“Were, you-you-you said were. Dylan, please,” Connor was letting his own tears fall, holding his breath to avoid the same wrenching sob noises that came from Dylan. In his own knowledge of experience, his own sobs would have been much louder and crippling, had he let them free. 

“Connor-Connor Andrew McDavid, I-I-I just, I refuse to beg, to beg to be a part of your life for, for another six fucking years of my own life,” Dylan whispered, shaking his head frantically as he spoke, staring down at his feet and his feet only. The pebbled sidewalk, the concrete as it held his feet to the ground, and his body weight upright and together. 

“Dylan, Dyls,” Connor panted, knowing he was losing his composure. “Dylan William Strome, please, please don’t do this, please don’t leave me, not again Dylan, I can’t,” Connor knew his many and plentiful towers, the brick walls, the guards he’d stood up around himself for his entire life had been crumbled and beyond mendable at this point. 

“Connor, Davo, my ginger prince that you are and always have been, I’ve been here for six years knocking at a door that is bolted with some sort of, some sort of military-grade protection, and, and Connor, I just, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t, I just, I can’t, I really can’t, Connor. I’m so sorry, I really,” Dylan paused to choke, to cough an actual sob out, to sputter his last words that mattered out. “I really am, I just can’t, not anymore, not after tonight, no,” Dylan hated everything about this. The fact that he had to do the leaving, the departure of what seemed to be their endless relationship, the heartbreaking, he had to be the bad guy. The way he was making Connor panic, the way he was tearing Connor apart with his words, the soul shredding the two of them were simultaneously experiencing. The way that neither had the courage to reach out and stop it, to comfort and to heal, to mend, and to repair. The way that they never would fix this pain, the way that they would never be able to just pass one another on the ice with a glimpse of a twinkle in each other’s eyes. 

“Dylan, Dylan I’m so, I’m so sorry,” Connor just cried, that was all that he could do, as he sunk into the ledge of the wall beside the stairs. He sat down, the cold of the concrete ledge seeping through his jeans and chilling his skin underneath. It should have bothered him, he should have gotten up and requested that they move somewhere else, but while he acknowledged it in the back of his mind, he simultaneously felt nothing at all. Nothing at all what was he’d assume he’d get stuck with for a long time coming after this. 

“Me too, Connor, I mean it, I really am,” Dylan shuddered as he sat next to Connor, and for what would be the last time, he wrapped an arm around the shoulder of the man he loved so impossibly and hoped to bring some warmth to the shivering body of his first love. His first and his last, something that was now just as cold as the cement on a winter evening and something that had once been just about as scolding as the same cement in the summer of a bright and humid day.

**Author's Note:**

> suuuuuuuuper sorry (not really) for doing this, but also like, someone in the server mentioned the way that Connor and Dylan literally haven't been seen with one another/talking to one another/actively together in any way shape, or form since literally 2017, and i just sort of started typing and literally have not left the same spot since. so i mean, sorry but... not sorry.


End file.
